In the early days money was very tight and to save cash we would do everything on the cheap, even down to the oil we would use in the van engine as we found out to our own detriment. It was a nice summer evening and as usual we were making our way to a show, the good news this time was that it was a local gig so we only had to travel about 60 miles. Four male strippers and their gear all bundled into the back of a battered old van bombing along country lanes, it’s always exciting when we travel as you never quite know what what the night will turn up.

We were hurtling through old country lanes in West Wales in convoy with another van driven by our compare. The compare is the guy that holds the show together by singing and introducing the lads on and off stage, he basically controls the whole flow of the night, without a good compare you end up with a lot of bored and rowdy ladies. Normally we’d all be in the same van but on this night the compare had brought his own van as he was working another gig the following day and had to leave right after the show.

Anyway, back to the point of the story, remember how I was saying that we did things on the cheap? Well on this occasion we found out what happens when gearbox oil is used in a van engine! After about 20 miles or so of driving we started to hear a loud rumbling noise coming form the general direction of the engine, I turned to Dave who was driving and asked if he had heard it too? He said he had but that it was nothing to worry about as the van always makes unusual noises. At this point nobody except Dave was aware of the gearbox oil that had been used in the engine, it would seem that Dave had conveniently forgotten tell us all.

The engine noise gradually got much louder until we all start talking about what we should do, should we stop, or keep going? It was only a few more miles to go and we decided the van should be ok and make it. Wrong! We pushed the van so hard that eventually the engine completely exploded, not only that, but the damage was so devastating that large pieces of engine components rolled under our van and then hit the front of our compare’s van who was following closely behind without a clue what was going on in front of him. The “shrapnel” from the leading van caused so much damage to the radiator of the compare’s van that it also put him out of action! You can imagine the face on the recovery lorry driver when he saw who was in the van and what had happened.

The moral of this story is to not always do things on the cheap … and not to trust a driver who puts gearbox oil in an engine. 😉